Intermission

We're going to take a little break and take a slight tangent. This seems to be the right place for one.

I'm a Leo, albeit a very atypical one. I seem to have more Cancer qualities to me and it's more than likely because I was born in the earlier half of the Lion's reign. The confidence and ambitiousness strengths of the Leo never seemed to take hold with me and thankfully the only weaknesses I did manage to get were being melodramatic and stubborn. However, I managed to get every strength and every friggin weakness of a Cancer. Thanks to the lack of confidence, I was already halfway being dominated  even without a strong person in my life which really sucked. The jerk... well he was a Virgo. Let me rephrase that, he was a Virgo/Leo in all the weaknesses and very little of the positive strengths. Definitely NOT a good match.

Growing up, I certainly didn't act my age.  I much preferred to stay home and study than go out with my friends. Not that I had many in school and those I did have didn't live close enough to hang out with.  As I go through some of their pictures on Facebook, I see how much I truly missed out. It saddens me to know how very invisible I was to everyone. On the plus side, I never got beat up or exposed to any of the nasty pranks that many of the others got. The only time I was visible was when someone needed something. Now that I think back, maybe that's why I was so invisible... maybe it was just that some of the higher echelon had deemed that I was to be left alone and in the process made me invisible to those that would normally give me problems. I guess I should be grateful. To be honest, I think it would have been better if they hadn't as then I would have been prepared to handle the fkndickweed when he showed up. I would have known what was acceptable and what wasn't and not just sat back and been thankful for just any kind of attention. I wouldn't have been desperate. When I did go out, it was to the community theatre with my folks to help out.  Most of my truest friends were there and were a good 10-15 years or more older than me. The theatre was a second home to me and I felt comfortable around most of them. Maybe this was part of my problem in school, that I didn't consider them mature enough and I projected an aloofness?

Home was nice, at best. I know now that we didn't have much, otherwise we would have been living somewhere much nicer. Thinking back, I doubt a nicer place would have changed anything. As much as I didn't mind being invited to others' homes, I just never felt comfortable around other people and all I wanted to do was hide in a corner. The more people invited over (like in a party situation), the less comfortable I was. I never ever invited anyone to our home for much the same reason. Oh, yeah, my friends had nicer homes, but somehow I doubt that I would have invited anyone over even if we lived in a big beautiful home.  I'm going to own up to that right now. There's always been something a little off about me and I've yet to be able to put a finger on it. I wanted to be accepted and loved, yet I was either too shy to interact with people or simply too awkward. In either case, I already had this anxiety working against me.

Although we didn't have much, home was at least comfortable with all the necessities covered. Food on the table, a roof over our heads, clean clothes on our backs and transportation to where we need to be are usually the standard things people think of when they think of the needs. There are other things that we take for granted that really are needed in this day and age. When these items become a luxury, the quality of life takes a turn for the worst. I was used to at least the needs and these items being met. I was used to being comfortable.

Now back to our creepy little place.

The livingroom, used to be a store front. So it had this huge window taking up almost the entire wall along the street. If we were to cut the glass out and step through it, we'd drop neatly on the sidewalk. Yeah, it was that close to the apartment. We had to settle for these cheap cafe sized curtains because we didn't have enough money for the heavy duty rods that "real" curtains would have required, nevermind the curtains themselves. The curtains afforded a little privacy from the street, but nothing from those in the second floor or on the roof of the buildings across the street. Do you think that this would be enough sunlight for natureboy? Nope. every chance he got, he opened those damned things up. We have 8 cats, remember. Thankfully not all would get in the window at the same time, only 2 or 3. However, with dickweed constantly opening the curtains wide, everything was visible. Every cat, every pile of books, every last mess that he refused to keep cleaned up. Now, mind you, as a Leo... well we don't much like cleaning to begin with. We don't mind a comfortable mess, so long as it's not on display for the whole damned world to see. Besides, it's no one's business what size tv we have or the fact we have a computer. That's just asking to be robbed! Do you think he cared? You can bet your sweet bippy he would if that computer was no longer available for making work sheets and stuff. Oh wait, he wasn't a teacher at this point and didn't need that stuff. So why care? He at least had his books, the tv and the vcr, so who gives a damned?

The bedroom, I'm pretty sure, was an add-on. That wall certainly didn't look original. Thank goodness there was a closet in there, not that we had much to put in it. Since we had to leave almost everything behind, all we had to sleep on was an egg crate foam mat. Sleeping on that mat was extremely uncomfortable for a gal my size. I woke up achy and sore most days. He wondered why I was waking up in such a foul mood all the time. I had such a hard time getting up and do you think for just once he'd get up, turn off the alarm and gently wake me up? Yea... you guessed it. Storage for our "unmentionables" was a cheap shelving unit that was mostly falling apart (thank God for flea markets in walking distance). Of course, the top shelf held a bunch of his crap.... and his diary. Yeah, he kept a diary.... for years. Every last little detail of his life was written in there. Oh... and several months worth of it was written by me because he thought it would be "fun" to get it written together. Until I started adding stuff he didn't agree with. Then suddenly he was all fine writing it by himself. Well that and I complained the whole way through because he was unbelievably long winded and didn't seem to care that it bothered my hand to write for several pages a day. Yet if it was him writing, it was a half to three-quarters of a page. Go figure. Anyhow, the diary was front and center on the top of that shelving unit.

There was a basement for storage for both apartments. My first thought was to allow the "kids" access to it down there so they had room to run when I didn't have to worry about things. The litter would have been put down there too. Until we went down and took a look. That place creeped me out more than the apartment did. Too many places the "kids" could hide or get stuck. That and the other lady's stuff was down there too (yeah, this means she'd need occasional access to our place if she had a need to get something from storage) and I simply couldn't have anything happening to her stuff. I knew that idjut didn't like doing his one chore and just knew they'd potty all over her possessions. We ended up keeping the litter in the bathroom under the sink (ew) because it was the only other place for it. We also ended up keeping the large cage set up in front of the basement door for a couple of the kittens because they weren't spayed or neutered and we certainly couldn't handle more cats.

The place was listed as a 2 bedroom with a spare room. This spare room, I'm guessing started out as one of those display cases the old shops had for their mannequins. It, too, had a huge window taking up most of the one wall. Again, we opted for cafe curtains and rods just for the quick fix of privacy. Although... I think we used old towels because we didnt have anymore funding for real curtains.... and a rope for the rod for the same reason. I'm starting to forget some details. I apologize. Maybe this is a good thing? This room started as a minor catch all for mostly my stuff as the computer was set up in the livingroom (God forbid he has to sit alone in there, ya know). There was a set of built in shelves in the wall across from the window where I placed my "girls" (the dolls I managed to weed into the car during our move). It got really warm in there when the sun was travelling that side of the building. We had no air conditioning at first and even when we did, it didn't cool that room at all.

The room across the hall was "HIS" room. All his stuff was in there and I was never allowed to set foot in there if at all possible. I'm guessing they started out as dressing rooms because there was a partial divider or two in there. If you think that I complained about the mess in the livingroom, this room was worse.

Then there was the kitchen. A nice set of built in shelves for a pantry. Some cupboards over the sink for dishes and pans (none of which we had, remember). A stove............ You remember what I was saying earlier about necessities that are taken for granted? Yep, you guessed it. No refrigerator. Absolutely NOTHING to put fresh foods in or left overs. Wintertime wasn't too bad because the back porch kept most things cold enough, but during the summer? This means that half of what we normally would eat (when it could be afforded) was no longer available for our diets. No milk. No fresh meat. Couldn't store left overs and try to get another meal out of them. Nothing. From the time we moved in to the time I left his ass, it was nothing but boxed and canned foods. The only time we had fresh meat was on the day we went shopping or if we got invited to the neighbor's for supper. Any other day it was Dinty Moore stew, Hamburgerless Hamburger Helper, Ramen noodles.... well you get the idea. On weeks where finds were tight (rent, bills, gas and bus fare came first), we were lucky to have peanut butter sandwiches for 2 meals and a slice of dry toast for breakfast. Oh.... and I'm on a random schedule while he works a set schedule at a school (thanks to the neighbor gal who helped him get the job). Do you think he could be bothered to try and find another job? Granted everything in town proper would shut down around 6pm or so, but there was WalMart which wasn't too far from the apartment. Yeah, I could have switched jobs and gotten one at WalMart. Gotten a job closer to home. The problem is, it would have meant a wage cut. I was making $12/hour and although a good portion was going to bus fare (which would have been reduced if I changed jobs), after doing some figuring.... we would have been in as bad shape and still in the same boat. He'd still need a second job and was refusing to get one even though HE was the one with the set schedule. Nope. Told me if I thought someone needed a second job that maybe I should look for one.

This was the state of things for us. A neighbor who was the spit and image of a ghost from the past and hardly any of our needs covered.

The move to Pottstown

So we returned back to N'Awlins from Pa. I had a new job in hand, assuming I could find us a place to live. We'd checked the papers when we were up in the area and the prices were a tad much for us, considering only one of us would have a job when we got there. Stupid, yeah I know, but to us it looked like an improvement. I wanted to stay another day in the area and try to find a place to live, but he had this terrible urge to get back down south. Seems that urge was right on the money.

When we got back to the duplex, we found a note on our door. It was from the landlady saying she was going to be in the area inspecting the properties. When? That very day. Did I mention that we had 12 cats and 8 of them she had no clue we had? We'd been away for 3-4 days and ... well let's just say it was a HORRID mess. Not that it wasn't normally a mess because the jerk wouldn't do that one friggin chore as often as he was supposed to (2-3 times a day for that number of animals and I was lucky if he did it ONCE)... but this was 10 times as bad. Why did we have so many cats? Because nature boy had allowed not just one stray access to the house (the idea was to adopt the ONE cat off the street) but 4 of them. We didn't have the money to fix the one, nevermind all 4 (plus the male kitten we'd adopted) so when the 2 stray females went into heat I tried my best to keep them separated from the rest. But ding-bat... thought the one female was "too old" to conceive and allowed her free roaming when I wasn't home. He learned quickly that there isn't usually a too old for cats. Top things all off, one of the stray males got ahold of the other stray female. *sigh* Both litters came within days of each other. Only 2 kittens survived in each litter. So you can imagine the mess we came back to and how we spazzed trying to get things cleaned up before inspection. He headed out the door with a rent check and managed to convince her that we'd just gotten home from a long trip and that I wasn't feeling well but things were working great in the house. Thankfully, that was enough to get her to not show up on the doorstep.

Not sure where I found it, but I got a listing of the rental properties close to the area we needed to target and found one that "would do". The landlord's secretary was very nice and sent us some photos so we could see the place and decide if we liked it. She said it was similar to a single wide trailer in width with a basement access. We figured, we'd been in a single-wide before and it wasn't so bad so we sent in the app with a first month's rent with the condition we could send in the next part of the deposit when we got there as we had other expenses to deal with as well (moving being the biggest). An agreement was come to and we were all set on that end. Now to just get our stuff there.

Originally, a friend of ours was going to pay for a moving van so we could get our stuff to Pa. It was being done this way because we didn't have a credit card to put the truck on and they wouldn't take cash (especially for a cross country move). The object was to get moved and then pay the friend back as we could. At least that was MY intention, I can't say if it was his but my bet would go to that he wouldn't. Somehow, the deal fell through. Not sure if it was there wasn't enough credit on that card or if it was that the friend thought about it and decided that they knew better than that.... all I know is that there suddenly was no truck for us to utilize. What to do? Ok... so we take the little extra we have and ship at least some of the stuff and pack the car with the rest. I packed up everything, weighed it all and then went to the UPS site to calculate about how much it would cost to ship. *SHOCK* Omigoodness that wasn't going to be an option. Time to pare things down. So I started the process of weeding out, reboxing, reweighing, entering the totals, *sigh* rinse and repeat. This went on for two days. Everytime I said that it was still too much, he'd fuss and scream how he couldn't possibly weed anymore out. The biggest problem? His books that he just HAD to have. In his defense, many were limited editions and a number of them were first editions... so he DID have a point. However, when you have to choose between books or NECESSITIES for the home, I'm all for the necessities. He kept saying to put some of the stuff in the car. I told him it wasn't going to work as the "kids" had to ride somewhere. The whole back seat was going to be taken up with their travel cages as it was. Of the 12 boxes we shipped, we ended up with 8 of them being his damned books. Very little went in the line of household items, in fact I had to replace nearly everything that was in the kitchen. Thank goodness for Salvation Army stores, I'm tellin ya. I would guess that about 95% of the household goods and personal stuff got left behind.

The hardest part of finding any kind of home is when you have fur-children to contend with. Many landlords prefer no pets but if you must have pets, then keep it to one or two and the smaller the better. Dogs seem to be better accepted than cats because they're "less destructive". A well trained cat, however, is not destructive in the slightest and if the box is cleaned properly they don't leave all that much of an odor (some, not much though). So basically, it's the owner's fault the house stinks. This same problem can be said regarding dog owners if they allow the pooch to potty inside. The smell tends to amplify with the number of critters the household has. Needless to say, most places are fine with one.. ok with two but anymore 4 legged critters than that, they draw the line. You can imagine what I was going through knowing I had 12 in this house. I finally drew the line and said that we needed to reduce the number of felines travelling with us. We'd keep the original 3 that we'd had since NY and the one kitten (who was a HUGE yearling at this point) we'd adopted from a family that was at the first school. Beyond that, I said ONE of the kittens each but the adults have to go. I chose the yearling's son (he was a long coated yellow tiger) and waited for a decision from dippy. He wanted the one stray male's son, which was fine (he was a cute little porker). Then it was ... "well we cant leave this one because he's ill and all they'll do is put him down"... which I relented to simply because although I hated the cat, the last thing I wanted was him put down because his "sick" was simply old age. We bundled the rest up in carriers and called Animal Control. While waiting, dippy decided that he couldn't live without just one more of the kittens... a faded calico female. We argued over that one for near on the hour while waiting for the AC to show up. I still don't know how I lost that fight. We turned over the other 4 to the AC when they showed up. God help me the lie we spun regarding the cats we handed over. Although it's fewer cats than I planned to send off, it's a miracle I got him to agree to at least 4. If he'd had his way, we would have had all 12 in that car. I do believe the lack of space was the only reason he relented.

We packed up the car the next day and headed out, leaving the keys with a neighbor and telling them to help themselves to everything we left. Clothes, stuff for the kitchen, everything was fair game except the appliances. There were 4 pet taxis in the back of the car (the oldest 2 cats each in their own carrier and the other 6 divided up into the remaining two) and odds and ends stashed around them. The clothes and the computer, which I insisted must go because I'd paid for it out of my own money and if he could have all those books then I could have this, were all stashed in the trunk. It took us 3 days to get there. The gas mileage was worse than the previous trip, but that was to be expected considering how loaded down the car was. It didn't stop him from bitching about it though. We won't go into the fact that a couple times the hotel we ended up at only had 2 doubles in the room (instead of a king or queen) and I opted to sleep alone. Hey, he was a thrasher and I wanted to be able to sleep. I mean, what the hell, he never wanted to touch me anyhow! Why should it bother him if Im in another bed, it's not as though I was sleeping with someone else.

It was late when we arrived at the new place. We checked it out and the place gave me the creeps. Not sure what it was about it. The livingroom was the worst with that huge window facing the street. You see, the place we'd rented was converted from one of those old timey stores. The ones that little boutiques are in in the small towns. You know the ones, with the big store front windows you can look into without stepping back from the sidewalk and the other big window around the side where their window displays always were. Yeah. One of those. No curtains available to put up right now and 8 cats that the whole town was going to be able to see. I freaked. We went to a hotel and signed in. I called the landlord's secretary to see if we could get out of the lease. The plan was to call the neighbor in the morning and tell them to hold up, we're coming back. Technically we still had that place available (*sigh* yeah, we'd jumped lease and until the 1st the landlady wouldn't have known anything, we still had time). Well, of course we couldn't get out of this for at least a year so we were stuck with this creepy little place.

Thankfully, we were able to get our money back on the hotel.... well most of it. We hadn't messed it up, just used the phone. Dippy took us back to that rental and we were met by the upstairs neighbor. She was such a sweet lady, but I had this cold chill go up my back. For you see, this lady was nearly the spit and image of that one girl dingy had a crush on years and years ago. Accounting for the passing of time, this is about what I would guess she'd look like. Short blonde hair, blue eyes that twinkled when she laughed. Time had come full circle and I knew the end was near.